Coronavirus: FB, Sony pull out of Game Developers Conference

San Francisco, Feb 21 (IANS) Big technology players such as Facebook and Sony have pulled out of the forthcoming Games Developer Conference (GDC) over concerns of the deadly coronavirus outbreak. This comes after coronavirus derailed the world's biggest mobile exhibition -- the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona. Just one day after announcing it wouldn't be attending PAX East, Sony confirmed that it also won't be attending the Game Developers Conference (GDC) this March in San Francisco also due to coronavirus concerns, Android Central reported on Thursday. It is pertinent to note that Sony had cancelled plans for MWC as well and the novel coronavirus situation in China has caused a lot of distress across the tech industry. Facebook had already cancelled an event it had planned at the Moscone Centre in San Francisco a week back. Facebook, which owns VR company Oculus, also announced it won't be attending GDC in either capacity. Chris Pruett, the director of content ecosystem at Oculus, said in a statement, "Out of concern for the health and safety of our employees, our dev partners, and the GDC community as a whole, Facebook's AR/VR and Gaming teams won't be attending this year's Game Developers Conference due to the evolving public health risks related to COVID-19", the report added. Earlier this month, global telecom industry body GSMA cancelled the 2020 edition of the tech industry's biggest event -- MWC due to health safety concerns around novel coronavirus outbreak.
--IANS ksc/adr/